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Monday, December 24, 2012

There’s much than I enjoy about Christmas, but like most
people, I’ll also be glad when it’s over. We all need the rest!

Once again, Rona Green provided one of the year’s
highlights, this time with Corporeal,
her latest print exchange portfolio. As previously posted, I found coming
up with an idea for this one particularly challenging. I tend to be quite hard
on my own work, but perhaps because I struggled so much with this image, it’s
one that I have a particular affection for. Corporeal
will be exhibited at Geelong Gallery in February 2013.

Corporeal/Ethereal, 2012, linocut, 60 x 50 cmPrinter: Andrew Gunnell

Another high point was Inga Walton’s article Behind Beauty’s Masks – Works by DeborahKlein, which appeared in the journal Etchings, Issue 10, The Feminine. In my opinion, Inga is one of our finest arts
writers. To read the article, scroll down the right hand sidebar and click on
the link.

Steven Sondheim on stage at Her Majesty's Theatre, Melbourne, 23 November 2012

One of the year’s most unforgettable experiences happened quite
recently. On 23 November my partner Shane and I attended One Afternoon with Steven Sondheim at Melbourne’s Her Majesty's Theatre.
I’ve revered this brilliant composer and lyricist for decades. To call the
event a dream come true would hardly be accurate, because never in my wildest
dreams did I imagine I’d see him in the flesh. Sondheim was genuinely modest, disarmingly
warm, open and generous, discussing in entertaining and enlightening detail his work, ideas and creative process. It was pure gold.

I’ve very much enjoyed an ongoing correspondence with
Deborah McMillion Nering, an Arizona-based artist who makes her work on an iPad. In
fact, she is a pioneer of this still relatively new art form. Over the last
several months, we’ve found that aside from sharing the same first name, we
have an uncanny amount in common, including similar tastes in art, artists,
books, films – particularly a mutual enthusiasm for 1950s science fiction
movies. We also share a fondness for moths, which we believe are far superior
to butterflies. Deborah’s emails and imagery continually surprise, stimulate
and delight, none more so than the visual treat she sent me prior to the recent
opening of the exhibition BAZE atHand Held Gallery. (To see it, click HERE.Take particular note of the book titles.)

It’s been a busy year, although next year will be busier. My
first ever book art show will take place at Hand Held Gallery in June.
I’ll also be making more work for Wonder
Room, a group exhibition at Maroondah Art Gallery which is scheduled to
open in late October. My fellow artists Rona Green, Filomena Coppola, Heather
Shimmen and Paul Compton are a very talented lot, so I’m really looking forward
to that one.

Happy Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy New Year. I hope you’ll drop by from time to time in 2013.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

The Moth Woman Vigilantes UNMASKED is the second of my two zines made for Hand Held Gallery's Christmas show BAZE(Book Arts and Zine Exhibition) and the third Moth Woman Press publication to focus on the notorious Moth Woman Vigilantes. For those few who have never heard of the MWV, here is a brief introduction.

The Woman Vigilantes is an ancient, clandestine order whose origins are lost in the mists of time. To countless millions its members are selfless, fearless super heroes with an acute (some would say misguided) sense of justice, whose sole raison d'être is to help the helpless, even if they have to bend - or break - the law to do so.
The MWV have equally attracted a legion of detractors, who regard them as a
gang of ruthless, highly organised, criminals, whose reasons for taking the law
into their own hands are entirely sinister, self-seeking, and certainly not for
the purpose of righting wrongs. If they are so heroic, their critics insist,
why do they hide like snivelling cowards behind their moth masks?

For the first time in living memory key MWV office bearers recently bowed
to pressure and, to the abject horror of their colleagues and devoted admirers,
agreed to remove their moth masks.

The Vigilantes are famously camera shy (to date, they have never been filmed).
The controversial event has instead been recorded in a series of detailed
watercolour drawings. The revelatory pictures have been collected in the
limited edition zine The Moth Woman Vigilantes UNMASKED.

At long last, it seems that the identities of their leaders will be revealed.
How could they have sold out so readily? And how many more Vigilantes will
follow suit? In the tradition of all great super heroes, their heroic deeds
were largely dependent on their anonymity. Could this be the beginning of the
end of the Moth Woman Vigilantes?

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Here is a sneak peek of the small zine Poker Faces, which I’ve just completed.
It was made specifically for the forthcoming group exhibition BAZE (Book Arts and Zine Exhibition) at
Hand Held Gallery, Melbourne. Curated by Megan Herring, the exhibition will feature some of Australia's finest book and zine artists.

The zine is signed and limited to an edition of
100. It will be available on the opening night, which is from 6 – 8 pm on 20
December.BAZE will continue until 19 January.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Flight Centre was made for the fourth annual Belle
Arti Prize exhibition, which opens at Chapman and Bailey Gallery on 12 December.
The show has an open theme; the sole prerequisite is that all works are made on
Belle Arti stretched linen, 36 x 36 cm.

The imagery was partly developed from the linocut Corporeal/Ethereal,
which in turn was drawn from my current exploration of silhouetted imagery (see
blog posts November 12 and 14). A key influence was Surrealist artist René Magritte, who on several occasions employed both cut out elements and bird iconography (see below left).

Sunday, November 25, 2012

In 2009 a group of Australian women artists were invited by artist Gali Weiss to participate in a project that highlighted the plight of women in Afghanistan who had been denied the basic human right of an education. The project was intended to support them and SAWA (Support Association for the Women of Afghanistan.) Pictured above is the book Women with Wings, in which my linocuts are accompanied by a powerful and moving text by Majabeen. To read her story and learn about an exciting development in the project, visit Moth Woman Press HERE.

Previn, a superb, shamefully underrated
American singer/songwriter died earlier this year. I still treasure the memory
of her concert at London’s Albert Hall in the 1970s. This work is
respectfully dedicated to her memory.

Warmest thanks to Rona Green for
instigating this challenging and rewarding project which I’m so proud to be
part of, and to Andrew Gunnell for printing the edition of Corporeal/Ethereal.

Corporeal will be exhibited at Geelong Gallery, Victoria, during February-May
2013. Based on the works Rona showed me yesterday in her studio, it's going to be an
impressive show. (Full details TBA nearer the time.)

Monday, November 12, 2012

A project
that has occupied me of late is the linocut Corporeal/Ethereal,
my contribution to the Rona Green-curated print exchange portfolio Corporeal. (See also Blog Post October 8.) I
was very drawn to the theme and began preliminary research some months ago.
Several weeks and dozens of rough drawings later, however, few of my ideas felt
quite right. Even compositions that appeared to have some potential failed to
take the square-ish format fully into account (designated paper size was 60 x
50 cm.) Reluctantly, I had to abandon them all - at least as far as Corporeal
was concerned - and put the project on temporary hold.

Concurrently
I’d also been experimenting with painted silhouettes, some of which have
featured in recent posts. I came to believe that I would eventually find my way
back to Corporeal through the
silhouettes, if only I could hold the faith while I took the necessary time to
develop them further. This was indeed what eventuated.

Corporeal/Ethereal was editioned by Andrew Gunnell; the completed work will
feature in my next post. Another forthcoming post will illustrate its impact on
the project that followed directly afterwards. In fact, although it’s still a little too
soon to tell, it may well be a key image in terms of my work’s future direction.

Friday, October 19, 2012

During the past week in Spring-deprived Ballarat, I editioned and
hand-coloured the linocut Four Eyes, destined for Impressions 2012,
the fundraising exhibition at the Australian Print Workshop in Melbourne, which
opens on November 30.

The image, a continuation of a long-term fascination
with the concept of the Other, also draws from my repertoire of masks and moths. The latter, Milionia aetheria, hails from Queensland, in northeastern Australia.

Monday, October 8, 2012

It's hard to believe that only a week ago it seemed that Spring had finally decided to live up to its name; Ballarat's infamously cold Winter always hangs on with dreary, grim persistence. Don't get me wrong. There's much that I love about Winter, but this one had definitely overstayed its welcome.

Taking advantage of what turned out to be only a brief respite from the cold, I moved operations out to the sunroom. Its warmth, which to a great extent has remained even after the cool (and wet) change, is so much more conducive for cutting lino.

It was good for the spirit besides, especially when combined with musical accompaniment from the magpies in the garden. To me their song is as lyrical as Mozart, as uplifting as the sunshine - and considerably more enduring than the latter.

The linocut in progress pictured above (captured during that all too brief spell of sunshine) is destined for the exhibition/exchange Corporeal, curated by Rona Green.

Saturday, September 29, 2012

As followers of this blog will be aware,
I’ve recently begun experimenting with silhouette forms. Here are three more examples. Like those posted previously, they are on a small scale, although I’m working concurrently on a relatively large-scale
silhouette, a linocut for Corporeal, a
project curated by artist Rona Green. (More of this in the near future.)

In the meantime, I’m finding it fascinating
to research the origins of the silhouette. Its varied and distinguished lineage can be
directly traced to the legend of the first portrait. Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History (circa 77-79 AD) wrote
of Dibutade, a Corinthian girl who traced her lover’s candlelit shadow on a
wall before he set off on a long journey. Silhouettes have also been aligned
with the black-figure vases of ancient Greece and the art of Chinese
paper cutting.

Silhouettes became extremely popular in the
17th and 18th centuries. Because they were relatively
quick, simple and inexpensive to make, many amateur artists, including women, enthusiastically
took up silhouette portraiture.

By the 19th century professional
artists had patented several silhouette-tracing machines. The principal behind
them was little different to the method employed by Dibutade centuries before.
But the drawing now served as the artist’s cartoon, which was then reduced in
size using an instrument called a Pantograph or ‘Stork’s Beak’.

Even though professional silhouette artists
were patronized by the rich and famous, their clients were equally immigrants
who, in the days before the invention of photography, recognized a quick and
economical way of commissioning a likeness to send to loved-ones in their
homelands.

Recently I acquired a DVD copy of Vincente Minnelli's movie The Pirate (1948) a film I've long admired. Minnelli is an extraordinary colourist with an incredible eye for detail, for example the brief sequence where Judy Garland as Manuela sits for a silhouette portrait prior to her wedding.

Silhouettes were originally referred to as ‘l’art
d’ombre’ (shadow art) in France and ‘shades’ or ‘profiles’ in Britain. The art was
re-named for Étienne de Silhouette, a French
Economist, who, as Finance Minister during the Seven Years War (1756-63) imposed
severe economic measures on the populace – particularly the wealthy.
Consequently his name was applied derogatively to practically anything that was
done on the cheap. In this instance, the name has stuck, but fortunately its original negative connotation hasn’t.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

I've just completed another work for Vignette/Vitrine. In my last post I mentioned that I believe a great curatorial theme can potentially
revitalise an artist's work, as curator Megan Herring's has done for mine.

Firebrand, the unique edition book
pictured above, is an experiment of sorts, and like the works previewed last week, evolved directly from this project. It's already become evident that it will be a springboard for more books; in fact I've already started to map some of them out.

To see inside the covers of
Firebrand,
visit Moth Woman Press artist's books and zines HERE.

The exhibition opening at Hand Held Gallery is from 6-8 pm on Thursday 20 September (see below). For those in Melbourne, I hope you can join us, or that you'll be able drop in during the show's run. For full details, scroll down to the end of my previous post.

Saturday, September 8, 2012

I have some new work in the forthcoming
group exhibition Vignette/Vitrine at
Hand Held Gallery, Melbourne. Curated by Hand Held Director Megan Herring, the exhibition
will comprise paintings, objects and works on paper. Other participating artists are Sheridan Jones, Paul
Compton, Bonnie Hanlon, Priscilla Ambrosini and Megan Herring.

The miniatures encased in the wooden box pictured above are my first forays into silhouette figures. Traditionally, silhouette portraits are black
paper cutouts, sometimes with selected details added in white. The painted surfaces of my works deliberately emulate these effects.

Over the years I’ve found
curated projects such as this one to be exceptionally challenging and stimulating.Seeking fresh ways to address a
specific brief, at least if it’s one that particularly excites my imagination, will almost invariably introduce new life and direction to my work. In fact, I’ve continued to
extend and develop the silhouetted figures, and plan to take them to a larger
scale.

The shadow animations of Lotte Reinigerare the primary influence for this series. As
a young child, I discovered her animated fairy tales on black and white
television. I was completely captivated - I had never seen anything quite so
magical before - and never forgot them, although I had no idea who their
creator was.

The mystery was finally solved in 2010 when I attended a special
screening at Melbourne’s Astor Theatre of Lotte Reiniger's TheAdventures of Prince Achmed(1926) the world’s first extant full-length
animated film. I wondered if this could be the same artist whose fairytale
animations had stayed with me for all those years. Indeed she was. The Adventures of Prince Achmed, an
acknowledged masterpiece, is now firmly entrenched near the top of my list of
favourite films. I have my very own DVD copy, courtesy of the British Film
Institute, and, thanks also to the BFI, can also regularly revisit Reiniger’s
short fairytale subjects that I first encountered in childhood. When
researching her work, I was elated to learn that she shared my admiration of the work of film pioneer Georges Méliès, and that Jean Renoir, another of my cinematic heroes, was a lifelong enthusiast and supporter
of her work.

Monday, September 3, 2012

My linocut Lace Face/Lace Wraith, 1997, is part of the current exhibition Sentinels andshowboats – milestones in print collecting at Geelong Gallery. The
exhibition aims to reflect the range and inventiveness of the works that have been acquired
through the prestigious Geelong Print Acquisitive Award.

Lace Face/Lace Wraith was a recipient of the Award in
1997. It was one of the final works that I
completed whilst undertaking a Master of Arts (Research) Degree at Monash University in
1995-97. The motif of the tattoo, which I had explored via the Tattooed Faces andFiguresseries (1995-97) became ultimately a
device through which to incorporate women’s sewing iconography as a signifier of
women’s hidden histories. As an extension of this, I began to print onto fabric, then layer and hand stitch the imagery. At first I experimented with pre-exisiting blocks, beginning with the linocut Lace Face, 1996 (the basis for this work) before progressing to new linocuts designed specifically for printing onto fabric. The first of these was The Lair of the Lyrebird, 1997. To see this and other works on fabric, click HERE.

Lace Face/Lace Wraith reflects my ongoing fascination with the notion of the double - in this instance, the haunted double. In Scottish dialect, a wraith is a spectre or apparition of a living person; it is also regarded as a portent or omen.

Other featured artists in Sentinels and showboats include Heather
Shimmen, Rona Green, Tate Adams, Raymond Arnold, George Baldessin, John Ryrie and
Pat Brassington.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

On Saturday, August 11 we went to the
Melbourne opening of Contemporary Australian
Drawing: drawing as notation, text and discovery at Langford 120 Gallery. For Curator Dr. Irene Barberis, the exhibition’s original raison
d'etre was to correspond with the Drawing Out conference at the University
of the Arts, London in March, 2012 (see Blog Post Thursday, March 15) where the Palgrave Macmillan book ContemporaryAustralian Drawing #1 by Janet McKenzie was also first launched.

For most of the 87 artists, this may be our only chance to see the exhibition. It seems to be taking on a life of its own, with plans for it to travel
to the USA, Asia and Europe (dates and venues TBC.) Langford 120120 Langford StreetNorth Melbourne, Victoria 3051Telephone: +61 3 9328 8558
Email:langford120@gmail.comHours: Wednesday - Saturday: 11 am - 5pm; Sunday: 12 noon - 5pmThe exhibition runs until September 2.

Pictured below are some installation views:

Above, second from right: Christopher Heathcote, who wrote the Introduction to Contemporary Australian Drawing #1

Saturday, July 21, 2012

This post features watercolour reproductions of several newly discovered species. These diminutive insect women will be housed
in a miniature plan cabinet, which will in turn reside in my burgeoning
personal Wunderkammer. They are related to theMoth Masksshowcased in my blog post of June 7.

The Wunderkammer (also known as a Cabinet
of Wonder, or Wonder Room) originated in Renaissance Europe and was a
forerunner of museums. Applying modern terminology, exhibits in these extensive, eclectic and frequently eccentric privately owned collections could generally be grouped under categories including Archeology, Geology, Ancient History, Art,
Religious Relics, Ethnography, Antiquities and Natural History. Many examples
of the latter were wondrously fantastical, for example, unicorn horns or the
equally dubious Vegetable Lamb of Tartary.

Unnatural history specimens such as these were
precursors to the similarly improbable exhibits later associated with P. T. Barnum's American Museum, which opened in January, 1842 - most notably, the grotesque
mummified ‘‘Feejee” Mermaid pictured on the right (in reality, a monkey’s torso joined to the tail of
a fish). Barnum’s museum of oddities (which also included a flea circus) was a precursor to carnival sideshows.

Since childhood I’ve been attracted to science fiction movies of the 1950s and 60s, including The Fly (1958, d. George Langelaan) and The Wasp Woman (1959, d. Roger Corman).
Although not primary sources, these films have undoubtedly exerted some
influence on the current work.

The series also reflects my long-term
engagement with British portrait miniatures; indeed, these are among the smallest
images I’ve yet produced.

This is my first sustained effort with
watercolours, although I’ve been drawn to them for some time. When in London
towards the end of 2011, I bought a set of Winsor and Newton Artists’
Watercolours. I’m finding the new medium challenging, hugely pleasurable – and
rather addictive.

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Inga Walton's article/interview behind beauty's masks - works by Deborah Klein appears in the current issue of the arts journal etchings, issue 10, the feminine, published by Ilura Press. (See also Blog Post Wednesday 11 April, which provided a link to an excerpt from the text).

I'm pleased to announce that the text can now be read in its entirety by clicking HERE.

There is another link on the right hand column of this blog, directly under the Survey Exhibition in Miniature.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

On Saturday afternoon (June 16) we called
into Langford 120 gallery for the antipodean launch of ContemporaryAustralian Drawing #1 by Janet McKenzie. The book was an initiative
of Irene Barberis of Metasenta® and is
published by MacMillan Art Publishing, Australia. Seventy-seven Australian artists are featured, each one's images accompanied by a comprehensive and informative
essay. Janet McKenzie’s earlier
publication Drawing in Australia – ContemporaryImages and Ideas (Macmillan
Australia, 1986) was a post-art school bible for me and I still treasure it.
This exceptional new book will be an invaluable companion piece.

Directly below is a snapshot of the launch, followed by the pages that focus on
my own work. Initially I was intrigued that author Janet McKenzie specifically
requested these images for the book, as they are all relief prints. But then
for me the lino cutter has always been first and foremost a drawing implement.

The book also includes written contributions by Irene Barberis and Christopher Heathcote. For full details, including a
complete list of featured artists, click HERE.

About me

I am a visual artist who makes paintings, drawings, prints and book art. In 2009 I founded Moth Woman Press, through which I publish my zines and limited edition books, beginning with ‘There was once… The collected fairy tales’, a small anthology of thirteen original stories illustrated with my prints, paintings and drawings. Currently I divide my time between Melbourne and Ballarat in South Western Victoria.